The Stars Live in Her Eyes
by peace1089
Summary: Roxanne's first birthday was punctuated by the end of human history. Her birthday present was getting out of there alive. (Rated T for mention of the extinction of the human race)
1. Her First Birthday Amongst the Stars

**AN: I know that our sun can't go supernova but just go along with it for the sake of the story ;P if enough people like it, I will definitely continue writing this c: if not, consider it a prompt for your own imagination.**

Earth was a relatively young planet dominated by organisms that had barely passed infancy in their evolution. They had only just discovered the stars and only began to wonder if other sentient beings existed on a world besides their own. The Richi family was one founded on logic, reason, and science. From day two, Roxanne had been exposed to the stars by her father. Mr Richi was one of the few scientists at NASA who had been let in on a secret only the highest security clearance level could access. Even the president of the United States did not know that they had found a planet that not only had the ability to sustain life, but appeared to have what most science fiction fans could only dream of: humanoids. Mr Richi was one rocket scientist in the top group of five. He was also a constant pessimist and believed that the odds were not in Earth's favor. He believed that the sun would collapse some time within his daughter's life. He was not okay with that. He studied the sun flares, which grew more and more erratic. When he had found out his wife was pregnant, Michael Richi began working on a rocket that could potentially save his daughter's life some day. He went so far as to work the books to sneak out enough rocket fuel for the tiny pod he made.

Mrs Richi was a writer. She loved history and reading. When she found out she was pregnant, she began writing a little book for her baby. Her husband's worry had made her worry as well. She packed as much information about her family into a little notebook and began a second one, this one with pictures. She described how human anatomy worked and what she could expect if she really was separated from her mother. In the front of the notebook, she tucked a letter to whoever found her daughter. She kept telling herself that it was just nerves, but her gut told her otherwise.

To Whomever May Find This:

My name is (or should I say was?) Penelope Richi and if you are reading this, then my husband was right and our sun has indeed collapsed into a black hole. Richard, my husband, began building this pod when I found out that I was pregnant. My daughter's name is Roxanne Amanda Richi and she will be a bright young girl. Her father is one of the best scientists in our country and one of a handful of people who know about the existence of the planet this pod has been set to go to. Of course, if you're reading this, Roxanne is the only human left. Please take care of her and treat her well. Inside her pod you will find notebooks with as many details as I could save for her. A good portion of human history, anatomy, different kinda of animals that existed here, and a full health history of her family. In this notebook I have included details about the normal human early development patterns. I can only hope now that someone with a kind heart (or hearts :) ) will find my precious daughter. My husband and I love her more than ourselves. She's the only hope for our kind.

By the time Roxanne was actually born, Richard and Penelope were terrified about the current solar weather. The sun was almost constantly reaching new peaks in temperature and burning off much more hydrogen than it should. Richard quit his job to stay at home with his family for the time (which he believed to be very limited) he had left with his lovely blue eyed wife and adorable, chubby baby girl with a tiny tuft of brown hair on her head. She had been listening to classical music since she was still in her mother's womb. Richard knew that the beings that Roxanne would land amongst had much larger brains and probably much smarter than the average human. He wanted to give her as much of a boost as possible. Whenever she was awake she was constantly learning. She was crawling two months ahead of schedule and said her first word at nine months. Yes, Roxanne would be a very bright human girl. By her first birthday, she could walk all by herself. Of course, the little girl's birthday turned out to be the last day of human history.

Everyone was panicked except for Roxanne's parents. They stuck all of Roxanne's notebooks and legal documents as well as several toys and enough food and oxygen to last twice as long as they expected it to take for her to land on a distant planet. Richard calmly checked all the systems and made doubly sure that there was a backup for every backup including fuel to get her there. With only a couple hours to spare, the loving parents wrapped their daughter in her favourite blanket, kissed her on either cheek, put her favourite Mozart CD on and headphones on her head, and told her they'd see her soon and not to be afraid. She whimpered a little when the plexiglass window at the front of the pod closed her off from her parents. They waved at her sadly before the pod rocketed off into space. Roxanne was immediately distracted by the stars around her. She pressed her chubby hands against the window and stared at every thing she passed with wide blue eyes. Within a few hours, the Mozart had put her to sleep and she dreamt peacefully of her solar system mobile, the cake she'd smashed into her mouth that morning, and her parents' loving faces.


	2. A New Playmate

By all accounts, Roxanne was smart for a human child. If she hadn't been, she wouldn't have stood a chance. A normal one year old would not be able to feed herself, even if the containers of baby food had no lid. She was messy, yes, but she managed to get most of her mushy carrots in her mouth. She was almost done with potty training and her little seat in the pod was actually a tiny little toilet seat. There was a big red button next to her food labeled "flush" and Roxanne figured it out rather quickly. "Flush" was one of the first words she learned. She knew momma, dada, please (which sounded like "peas"), thank you, sorry, and a few other words including her name.

Her intergalactic flight took a total of nine days. It was a good thing that she had a few toys because she started to feel trapped in her little pod by day three. Her little muscles wanted to move and play and it wasn't fun for her to simply sit there. She'd cried about it for a little while but stopped when she realized that it wasn't going to change her situation.

Mommy and Daddy must not be able to hear her, she thought with a tiny frown on her rose coloured lips.

By the time she had gotten bored with her little toys, she was entering the atmosphere of her destination planet. That definitely gave her something to look at. She didn't press her hands against the glass though because it was hot. In the distance, past the fire surrounding her pod, was blue. So much blue. It wasn't until she was in a lower layer of the atmosphere that she could see land, which was a mixture of several brilliant colours instead of the green and brown of her home. Turquoise, purple, and a rich bright green made up most of what she saw.

Soon enough, her little pod had popped out its tiny landing gear and her seat belt tightened almost to the point of being uncomfortable. She was very close to the ground now, only twenty or thirty feet up, and she could see blue people stopping and staring at her with round eyes. She touched down in what appeared to be a field of purple grass and she was frustrated that she couldn't get out of her seat belt even though her window had popped open. The air that came inside her pod had a distinctly different smell to it, one that her little brain couldn't place.

Roxanne wanted her parents. She wanted to know where she was. She wanted out of this blasted contraption, and by god, she was going to cry until she got out. Her cries attracted the attention of a small boy who had been lying in the very same field, enjoying the silence. He hadn't seen her pod land and was startled to sitting when he heard a crying baby. The little blue four year old stood and slowly approached the odd looking pod and stared in shock when he found a little girl inside. She looked nothing like anything he'd ever seen before. She had blue eyes and brown hair (on her head? How strange!) and her normally peachy skin was rosy from crying.

"W-where did you come from?" He found himself asking her. He pressed the little button in the middle of her "x" shaped belt holding her in the machine and she immediately stopped crying. She didn't understand the strange words he was saying, but she didn't mind too much since he had let her out of the seat belt.

"Roxanne," she told him, looking up at the blue skinned boy in wonder. He had poison green eyes that looked as surprised as everyone else. She struggled to get herself out of the pod, but managed to crawl out after a few unsuccessful tries. "Where?" She asked the blue boy. She was grateful to him for letting her out of her tiny space. "Thank you."

The boy looked confused. He didn't understand what she was saying, but assumed that "Roxanne" was her name. What a strange sounding name, he thought. He reached out his hand toward her and she took it with a tiny smile. She liked this boy with the interesting eyes even she didn't understand why he didn't have hair or the words he spoke.

"Syx," he told her, pointing at himself. He pronounced it "sick-iss" but she understood mostly.

"Syx," she confirmed. "Roxanne," she said, pointing at herself. Syx smiled at her and started pulling the weird machine behind them with the hand that wasn't already occupied.

Syx led her past a silver fence and toward a big building that was white and silver. Roxanne followed him obediently and looked at as much as she could while they passed it.

Inside, several adults ran toward them. She didn't like how they looked at her so she hid behind Syx, still holding his hand tightly.

He spoke to the adults, who looked puzzled. He told them that she didn't speak their language and that her name was Roxanne. Also, he told them that he liked her pink skin and blue eyes- something that did not occur on their planet. The woman in the front knelt down in front of the kids and looked at Roxanne with a smile. She pointed to herself and said,

"Ninea," which she pronounced as "Neenea." Roxanne came out from behind her new friend a bit and replied,

"Roxanne." The woman looked back at the other adults with an incredulous smile. They talked amongst themselves about what to do with the little girl, and decided to take a good look at her pod before they made any decisions. Ninea asked her son to go play with the strange little girl until they figured out what to do, and Syx was all too happy to comply. He hadn't had a companion his age since his older brother died.

He brought Roxanne to a giant playroom which she looked around at in awe. Then she started playing with everything that she could get her peachy hands on. She loved the squeaky octopus and the big slide in one corner of the room. Syx got her to play with action figures with him and even though they couldn't communicate with words, they got along just fine with gestures.

Downstairs, his elders had found the notebooks, toys, and the CD player in her pod. One of them recognized the language the notebooks were written in but didn't know how to read it, so he called the nearest linguist who was all too excited to get to read something new in such a foreign language.

An hour later, the linguist had translated the letter inside the first notebook for them, and Syx's mother had to wipe a tear from her eye. A whole planet of such diverse people... Reduced to a single one year old girl. She could tell that her parents must've been desperate if they were willing to send their daughter to a planet they knew so little about. That was much more love and trust than she had ever known humans to have. The linguist took the notebooks home with him and promised to have them translated into new notebooks by tomorrow morning.

Ninea told the others that Roxanne was going to stay there, at least for a little while, and ignored the looks they have her.

"Humans are violent!" One of the men said. "What if she hurts Syx?" Ninea brushed him off.

"She's a little girl who has yet to be molded by her people. Given enough time, I'm sure she could be just as compassionate as any of us. I'm a mother. You wouldn't understand, Vinnus." She turned on her heel and hurried up the steps and to Syx's playroom to see how the two were getting along. To her surprise, the kids were getting along better than she dared even hope. Syx was touching Roxanne's hair in fascination. He'd never seen such long hair before and definitely not on someone's head. Roxanne didn't mind though, and was sitting there with a smile, squeezing Syx's favourite octopus repeatedly. The fact that he let her touch his octopus was a wonder in of itself. Syx looked up at his mother with a sheepish grin.

"I decided that Roxanne will be staying here, at least until we figure out what to do with her." Syx cheered and hugged the little girl who didn't understand a word Ninea said. She assumed it was okay though because Syx hugged her. She hugged the older boy back and shrieked in delight when he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder gently. He was stronger than he looked, Roxanne surmised, and happily dangled over the boy's shoulder as Ninea lead them to a different part of the castle.


	3. To My Dear Little Princess

AN: okay yeah I'm writing this x3 I like it too much to leave it alone.

Roxanne soon found that gestures weren't adequate for communicating for long. So when Syx put her down in a new room, she tried to ask him to teach her his words. It took a little while for her to get this across, only proving her point further. Ninea was still in the room and watched the children's exchange with amusement. When Syx finally understood what she was getting at, he asked his mother how he would go about helping little Roxanne.

"I'll be right back," she told him and strode out of the room to go find the same teaching materials they had used for Syx when he was a baby.

In the mean time, Roxanne looked around the blush painted room. At one end of the room there was a giant window with a seat in the sill and white organza like curtains billowing away from the open window. Roxanne tugged Syx over to the window and he helped her climb onto the sill. The seat was plush and she could lie down on in and still have plenty of space for the four year old boy. They looked at the puffy white clouds in the electric blue sky, and soon Roxanne had drifted off to sleep, happier than any of the days she had spent in her pod. While she slept, Syx brushed his fingers through her thin brown hair and smiled. He liked this strange girl and silently hoped that she would be his playmate forever. He'd been so lonely being the only child in the castle, and he was not allowed to speak to normal children his age.

'You're of a higher rank,' his mother always told him. 'You have to act like the prince you are and sometimes it won't be fun.'

He wondered if the reason he was allowed to play with Roxanne was because she was a princess from another planet. That made sense in his mind. If that was the case, then maybe she really could stay in the palace with him. He grinned broadly when her pink lips stretched into a yawn.

Soon enough Ninea had found Syx's old learning toys and carried them back to the room that was to be Roxanne's for now. When she walked into the room, however, she found both children were sleeping softly on the windowsill, Syx's left hand in Roxanne's hair and his right in one of Roxanne's chubby hands. She smiled with only a bit of sadness in her eyes. She set down the box quietly and snuck up on the two tots to capture a picture of the sweet moment. Few people took pictures any more because everyone can remember almost every moment of their lives, but she knew that Roxanne wouldn't and had already made up her mind to make a picture book for the little girl.

Ninea closed the window to make sure neither of them would roll out of it, then turned off the light and left the room so they could sleep.

Roxanne woke up more comfortable than she could ever remember. Her wide blue eyes fluttered open around sunset and she was momentarily thrown off. The sky wasn't so vivid, was it? She remembered where she was when she felt little fingers in her hair and a hand in hers. She smiled and sat up next to the blue boy. He woke up the second Roxanne moved. He was a light sleeper, even for his species. He looked around and found a pair of light blue eyes on him. He couldn't help but smile at Roxanne and he jumped down from the windowsill so he could help her get down. Then, he flipped the light back on and dug through the box his mother had left underneath the light dial. He decided the best way to start helping his friend learn his language was to teach her the way he'd been taught. So he grabbed a set of coloured blocks and put them down on the ground between himself and Roxanne. He picked up a sunny coloured block and said,

"Yellow." Roxanne found the name for the yellow block hard to pronounce since her mouth wasn't used to making those sounds, but she did the best she could. Syx was surprised but happy that she was able to say the word almost perfectly. Most children had the most difficulty with yellow out of any other colours and learned that word last. Which is why he picked it for her first. He grinned and picked up a block that matched his skin.

"Blue." He continued with the blocks until his mother came back to the room to bring the kids to dinner. They had slept through the midday snack so she was sure they were both quite hungry.

"Syx, Roxanne, dinner," she called. Roxanne didn't understand the last word, but she let Syx lead her out of the room and fall into step behind Ninea.

The next morning, Ninea was anxious to read the translated notebooks, so instead of waiting for the linguist to come back, she travelled to the specialist's house. He had been up all night translating, but pulling an all nighter was rather common to her people. He welcomed the duchess in happily.

"According to the notebook containing details of human anatomy, the only differences between us and Roxanne is appearances and brain size," he explained excitedly. "Her brain is just a bit smaller than ours but she seems to be more advanced than the early childhood development details in the notebook. At the rate she is going, she won't be too far behind other children her age. The problem is, she won't be able to hold as much information as we can." Ninea sat down on a black sofa in Dreus' living room. Dreus, being an excitable young man, would have babbled on all day if she'd let him.

"I have one question and then I'll let you continue. Do you think her DNA is compatible with ours?" Ninea wasn't sure what she was going to do with Roxanne, but her son certainly didn't seem to be inclined to let her out of his sight. "She's different from the glaupunks," she explained. "So I don't think she has the triple-helix." Dreus nodded, contemplating this.

"I... I'm not sure. Your best bet would be to swab her mouth and get a doctor to analyze it. I don't believe she has a triple helix either. She seems closer to our species than to the glaupunks. Human children tend to develop a bit slower than ours and forget their formative years when they get older, but besides that and a few physical differences, she's very similar to any eight month old child of ours." Ninea nodded, thanked Dreus for translating the notebooks in such a short time, and left for home with the original notebooks and the translated versions.

Meanwhile, Syx and Roxanne played down by the water where he taught her more words with the different things they found on the shore. He kept her so busy that she didn't have time to think about her parents or wonder where they were. She saw so many new things and bright shades that were unnatural on Earth. She wanted to see it all, and Syx was happy to show her everything he knew.

At lunch, Ninea got Syx to swab Roxanne's mouth. Roxanne trusted him the most so it seemed natural to get him to do it. Roxanne likely wouldn't have opened her mouth for any of the adults. She was still wary of them, even if she was a bit more comfortable with Ninea.

Ninea took the swab and did the analysis by herself while the kids played. She was pleased to find that she was right about the structure of her DNA. Not only that, but Roxanne was 90% likely to be able to conceive one of their children some day. She spent the rest of the day reading the notebooks and only paused when she came across the notebook about Roxanne's family. In the front cover, the linguist had translated the mother's note to her child and she read: "To my dear little princess,"

Suddenly it all made sense to Ninea. Of course Roxanne was the only human who escaped because she was the most important one of them! She was the princess! How could she have not seen it before? This was why Syx immediately liked the girl! If there was only one child that the human race could save, it would make sense that they picked an impressionable baby princess. She would be able to carry on their legacy in a way. Ninea felt a bit giddy and smiled to herself. Tomorrow, she would tell Syx that Roxanne would be staying in the palace permanently.


	4. Attached

AN: Yes, I know the name "Syx" is overused in this fandom, but it really fits. And whenever I hear it I always run the scene outside the city hall through my head. "...and multiply it by six!" Blank stares o-o evil gods, I love that scene xD

Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and months turned into years too quickly. By the time Roxanne was four, she had almost completely forgotten that she came from somewhere else. She was so used to the blue skin of the people around her that she was a bit jealous. Syx, who was now seven, made sure to tell her every day how pretty he thought her peachy skin was. She still thought she looked dull compared to the vivid colours surrounding her. The two things that kept her happy with herself were that she could keep up with the kids her age and that she had eyes that no one else on the entire planet had.

Roxanne stayed in the palace and was told by Ninea, who tutored the kids, that she was a princess from Earth, which had been destroyed when she was still a baby. Roxanne couldn't remember anything to the contrary. Roxanne had forgotten English entirely but spoke Syx's language like a native. She had studied very hard with him for a long time because she wanted to be able to understand what went on around her and be able to communicate with her friend. The two spent most of their days playing together, and Syx rarely slept in his own room any more. This suited Roxanne just fine because she still had scary dreams sometimes. As long as Syx was there, however, she only every had happy dreams. Sometimes she dreamt of the two of them in a candy field or down by the ocean again or even of that first day they had met.

Ninea didn't mind the fact that they were so close. In fact, she encouraged it. She wasn't going to bring up the subject of marriage until they were much older, but it seemed only natural to her that the rarest princess in the universe would marry the prince. She often caught them stealing cookies together or trying to sneak outside. They were practically attached at the hip from day one.

Syx liked Roxanne. She was soft and pink and just as smart as any one else. He loved her hair, which currently hung like a sheet past her little waist. It contrasted beautifully with the white and silver dresses she wore. Above all, he adored her eyes. They were so expressive and different. She could keep up with him, mentally, physically, and conversationally. He prided himself in the fact that he was the one who taught her how to speak his language.

Roxanne loved her childhood. She rarely left the palace, but she never wanted for anything. Syx always kept her on her toes and learning something new every day. When she was five, he taught her how to build a condenser gun. She hugged him tightly when it actually worked and they jumped up and down in joy. She'd accidentally condensed a maid, but it didn't matter! She made it!

On Syx's ninth birthday, he got his minion. Both he and Roxanne immediately loved the little guppy and worked together to make a suit for him to be able to walk around. The first one was a little rudimentary, but it was still a huge success to the kids. It was remote controlled, but Minion was just happy he didn't have to try to roll his glass ball to keep up with the kids. They were too fast for that.

The second suit was one of Roxanne's design. Syx taught her a brilliant way of organizing her thoughts on red strings that hung from the ceiling. Soon enough, half of her room was obstructed by her notes. Syx helped her build it, but they kept her design. They based it after one of the pictures in her book of Earth animals. It was something called a gorilla, except they gave his suit purple fur instead of a boring brown.

This suit required Minion to have a transmitter implanted in his head, but after that, he could control his own suit. Ninea had to admit she was amazed that the human girl could keep up so well. She was astounded by Minion's suit and asked the kids if she could give their design to others so they too could make bodies for their Minions. They readily agreed, but told her that it would be best used for guppies, who could recover from the surgery quickly and figure out how to use it so it became natural to them. Older minions might not be able to get used to it so easily.

For Roxanne's seventh birthday, Ninea took the kids to a waterpark that had been closed to the public just for them. Roxanne was a little shy about showing so much of her skin, but she soon forgot when Syx challenged her to a race to the bottom of the biggest slide in the park. She won, of course, because she was heavier because of the higher density of her bones. Syx didn't mind too much though because they soon launched into a splash battle.

Ninea became more and more convinced that Syx and Roxanne would end up together. Syx had obviously become very attached to her, and in their species, it was very difficult to separate an attachment. Again, she didn't mind a bit and simply watched the kids play from the poolside. She only closed her eyes for a minute, she swore it was only a minute, but suddenly she heard her son screaming,

"Mom! Mom! Help!" She jumped up and ran toward the edge of the water. Syx was struggling to hold Roxanne above the water. Roxanne was unconscious and bleeding from her eyebrow. Syx was about to start crying. "I told her not to go down the slide head first, I told her!" Ninea went pale and took the little girl from his arms. She easily carried Roxanne to the side of the pool and shouted for the guards. She pressed her ear to Roxanne's chest and sighed in relief. She was breathing and her heart was beating. She probably just needed a patch for her eyebrow and she'd wake up soon.

"She's gonna be okay, right Mom?" Syx sniffled.

"Yes, sweety, she's gonna be just fine," she told him. He burst into tears and hugged his mother tightly.

"I shouldn't have let her do that," he sobbed. "What if she'd gotten hurt really bad?"

"You care that much?" Ninea asked with a smile as she rubbed her son's head with one hand and held Roxanne's with the other. He nodded vigorously and sniffed up his tears and snot. The guards had a first aid kit that was designed for Roxanne. Some of their medicines couldn't work for her and they had to have special skin patches for her since her skin was a different colour. Syx took the kit from the guards and tended to Roxanne himself, his eyebrows knitted together in worry. Roxanne woke up a few minutes later and was immediately assaulted with a hug from Syx.

"Don't ever scare me like that again!" he demanded, discreetly wiping his eyes free of tears. Roxanne nodded weakly and hugged him back.

"Don't worry, I learned my lesson," she told him. They went back to the palace after that. From then on, Syx was even more attached to the human and very protective as well.

He wouldn't let her work in the lab unless she wore (a slightly ridiculous amount of) safety gear. He never slept in his room again. He didn't let strangers get near her because they weren't used to her and who knows what could happen if they didn't like her? Ninea knew that her son was completely incapable of being separated from Roxanne at that point, and getting married would only make it official. She already knew that someday the seven year old princess and the ten year old prince would get married and have little hybrid babies. She could hardly contain her excitement.


	5. Sickly

AN: I'm really enjoying writing this. :) I've been writing chapters nearly back to back the whole time I'm awake! Enjoy~! 3

Roxanne didn't like to be thought of as weak, but she knew she was compared to Syx. Soon after the swimming accident, she got her vaccinations and her immune system really didn't like the alien illnesses. She was sick back to back for nearly two months. That was the scariest part of her life (and Syx's). Syx didn't leave her bedside until she was better and nursed her himself. He didn't like that her peachy skin had turned nearly paper white and he didn't like the dark bags under her eyes and above all, he didn't like how her youthful muscles began to atrophy. She had been strong before. She could keep up with him easily. After her illnesses subsided, however, she tired quickly. He slowed down for her but pushed her to run faster and longer and play harder.

Roxanne didn't fully recover until around Syx's eleventh birthday. He told his mother that Roxanne's health was enough of a present for him, but she bought him presents anyway.

Roxanne made Syx's birthday present with a little help from Minion, who loved having a chance to surprise his Sir. Syx had been complaining about how boring his clothes were, so Minion snuck into his room one night and nabbed three of his plain black bodysuits. Roxanne worried a bit that either Ninea or Syx wouldn't like the change to his traditional clothes, but when Syx unwrapped a suit which now had an electric blue lightning bolt down the front, he grinned from ear to ear, hugged the life out of Roxanne and Minion, and ran off to put it on immediately. Ninea liked it too. She had been teaching Roxanne a few skills she'd need some day to be a good wife and she saw this as an excellent progression for the girl. Syx came running back down to the dining hall with his head held high and hugged Roxanne again, this time dropping a kiss on her hair.

"Thank you so much, Roxanne! I love it!" She blushed a pretty rose colour and replied,

"I just thought you might like to have some change in your clothes." The other two suits also had blue additions- one with little blue stars running down the spine with a blue studded belt around the hips and the other with a blue lightning streak on each side that started in the middle of his ribs and ended just above his hips.

"You've spoiled me! Now I'll never be able to wear my boring clothes ever again!"

That wasn't too much of a problem, however, because Minion loved sewing for Sir and was prepared to "adjust" his clothing every time he had to get new ones because he was growing.

That night, after Roxanne had fallen asleep on the windowsill yet again (which was starting to get a bit cramped for the two to fit on), Ninea brought her son into her late husband's study. It was very rare that either of them went into that room, which made Syx swallow a rock in his throat. Coming here meant his mother had something very serious to talk to him about. Apparently something she could not say in front of Roxanne.

"Sit down, my little man," Ninea beckoned with a smile. She felt he was old enough for her to tell him what she planned for his and Roxanne's future. Syx looked nervous, but sat down in the chair across from his mother.

"Syx, you know that in two years you'll be of appropriate age to get engaged, yes?" He nodded slowly. He blanched at the thought of even meeting the glaupunk princess again, let alone marry her. "You'll wait until Roxanne is of age to be engaged to her, however." Syx choked and looked at his mother with huge eyes as his ears turned a vivid purple.

"What?" he managed to spit out. Ninea chuckled.

"You and I both know you hate the glaupunk princess. Roxanne is far more suitable for you, not to mention she's the rarest princess in the universe. I feel that it's only appropriate for you two to marry. Unless, of course, you don't mind marrying the both of you to glaupunks." He scowled at the idea of the prince putting his rough paws on Roxanne. "Right," she continued. "I just thought I'd let you in on my plans for you since you're growing up so quickly." She smiled wistfully at her youngest son. He was already older than his brother had been when he and her husband died in a horrific accident. She didn't like to think about it and neither did Syx. "You may go back to sleep now," she dismissed. "Try not to sleep on that windowsill anymore. It's not good for either of your backs to be so cramped on that thing."

Two more years flashed by like a strike of lightning. The glaupunk king wasn't exactly pleased when Ninea told him that Syx would not be engaged to his daughter, but was easily soothed with a gift of their planet's favourite precious metals and a tiara for his daughter's birthday present.

Syx was overjoyed that he'd never have to see that wretched girl again. He'd only met her once when he was seven. She had been mean and bossy and rude to Roxanne, who cowered behind Syx until the princess insulted him. Roxanne had been very angry and was not thinking when she pushed the other princess away from Syx and yelled,

"Go away you meany! Syx deserves better than you!"

Syx still smiles about that memory and how the glaupunk had been so stunned that Roxanne had touched her that she completely forgot that she was a thousand times stronger than either of the other children. They had made faces out the front window as the other royal children were flown away from the palace.

Roxanne had the same talk that Syx had with his mother the day she turned eleven and blushed much more than the prince had.

"I know you'll make a good wife for my son, Roxanne, and you're already part of our family. I already love you like a daughter." Ninea hugged the little princess and gave her the picture book she'd been saving since the day she landed. "I know that humans forget their earliest years, so I've been recording it for you," she explained with a smile. Roxanne thanked her quietly, still a bit dizzy from the knowledge that she would marry Syx someday in the not too distant future.

When she got back to her room, she shared her picture book with Syx and they spent half the night looking through it, Syx retelling every memory for her. They fell asleep on her bed that night holding hands and smiling contentedly.


	6. Betrothal

AN: I just woke up with some great ideas and I can't wait to give them to you. :3 I'll likely put up three chapters of this and a chapter or two of I Don't Care. Oh poo you guessed what I was going to write about this chapter xP are you psychic? Lol on to teh storeh! :3

For a while, Syx and Roxanne pretended like nothing had changed and really, nothing had changed yet. They still had two years of normalcy, and they wanted to make full use of the time that they spent without betrothal necklaces hanging around their necks. Regardless, eleven was a very busy age for Roxanne. Ninea had decided it was time for both of them to be shown to the public. The public needed time to get used to Roxanne even though within the walls of the castle no one thought twice about how she looked any more. So the two tweens started going to formal functions. At first, people stared because of how odd the pair looked together. Roxanne generally wore a floor length a-line dress that was black and had a vivid dark blue trim and laces in the back. It was something a normal princess of Syx's world might wear. Everyone had expected her to wear something more traditional to her people.

When they weren't dealing with hundreds of pairs of beady eyes staring at them, they were outside. That summer they slept outside in the field Roxanne had landed in. Something akin to lightning bugs always came out at night, flashing their bright green lights at each other. The two would catch them (but released them later) and climbed the only tree in the field which hung heavy with turquoise fruit this season.

Ninea worried about the kids being out alone but she knew what this was about, so she left it alone. Until Syx came home one day carrying Roxanne and freaking out. She'd fallen from the tree when she tried to get an especially perfect looking fruit from a branch that was just a little too far for her to reach. Syx's hand shot out at her back when she began to fall, but it wasn't enough and the material ripped. Because of this, she only had a sprained wrist and she thanked Syx several times. If he had not softened her fall, she would have ended up with a broken arm. Ninea still swatted the two with a rolled up paper.

All too soon, Roxanne started puberty. Syx was already in the midst of his changes but his were more subtle than hers. Her boyish frame began to fill out and her voice became higher. She thanked her lucky stars (and her parents somewhere for her genes) that she didn't get acne. Just before her thirteenth birthday, she officially "became a woman."

Syx started having trouble looking at Roxanne the way he always had. She was different now, and he knew it. Her body had become beautifully curvy and that was as much as he would admit noticing. At the last diplomatic ball before her thirteenth birthday, she floored everyone. Minion and Roxanne conspired for weeks about this dress. It was a hybrid of human fashion and traditional princess garb. It was still floor length, but the bodice was skin tight and a tulle like material took over at mid thigh. It was also white. The front of her dress enhanced her ever growing assets and the back laced down to just above her plump rear. She had also figured out how to curl her hair around a heated rod, so tonight, her chocolate hair hung in perfect ringlet curls down to her hips. She had never cut her hair besides to trim the split ends. She was proud of her shiny locks. She ought to, Syx thought to himself, still a bit dazed that the girl he'd known for most of his life- the one that played in the mud with him and swung from trees with him had become this... breathtaking angel. She took his elbow just outside the entrance with a little more blush than usual. She noticed how wide Syx's eyes had gotten and teased,

"Any wider and they'll pop right out of your head."

After that, Syx spent a good potion of his day down in the castle lab, designing and redesigning over and over what her necklace should look like. He wanted it to be absolutely perfect.

His mother could tell right away that Syx had fallen head over heels for the girl. He went about his days with a dreamy smile on his face and whenever he was around her, he was showy and silly and did anything and everything for her attention. He spent two weeks making the necklace he was to give Roxanne on her birthday. It was made of white gold wire, which was very pliable. He shaped it into a hollow heart which he then filled with sapphires and emeralds. At the bottom of the heart, a dark amethyst hung from a single silver wire. He had constructed a work of art, which he deemed only appropriate for the human princess.

Roxanne was freaking out. She only had two weeks to make a suitable necklace for Syx and she had no idea what to do. She looked at countless images of necklaces, but none of them really looked like something Syx would wear. So she frantically sketched and crumpled near twenty designs before she was finally pleased. It was very different from the necklaces she saw and prayed it would be okay. It was a bit like a charm necklace in the way that it had several things hanging from it. And it wasn't on a regular chain. She suspended the charms from an inch wide strip of kevlar. From left to right, she hung a sapphire and gold tree, an amethyst octopus, a silver encased aquamarine lightning bolt, a light blue sapphire heart, and a sapphire and emerald bound together with swirling white gold.

Roxanne's birthday was a national holiday because it was also the prince and princess' betrothal ceremony. She tried not to think about it too much while she opened presents at the family table, but blushed deeply every time she caught Syx looking at her. She opened his present last and was not disappointed.

His present was completely hand sewn by Minion and himself. It was a white and silver gown that was obviously perfect for the ceremony that night. The neckline swooped from the outer part of her shoulder to just above her cleavage. The sleeves came to mid-forearm and were white and sparkly with a layer of lace on top. The bodice would fit her like a glove. At the bottom of the neckline to just below the bust, a triangle had been cut out to show silver lacy ruffles. The same had been done starting at the mid-thigh all the way to the floor. A silver sash that went about her tiny waist finished it off.

Roxanne silently stood from her chair, keeping a poker face. She was going to make her friend- soon to be fiancé- squirm just a bit. He stood nervously when she approached him. She stopped right in front of him and every one went silent. A few tense moments passed until she cracked a smile and flung her arms around Syx's neck. He chuckled nervously but hugged her tightly to him. She pulled back just a bit to look at the expression on his face and barely kept herself from laughing. Instead, she dropped a chaste kiss on his lips.

"I love it! How could you worry I wouldn't?" she asked him teasingly. He was blushing from the crown of his head to past his collarbone.

"I- Roxanne, you know me. I worry about everything incessantly." She nodded vigorously and buried her face in the crook of her neck. She had not even heard the cheers and applause from everyone around her.

A few hours later, Roxanne was dressed and dolled up. Her eyes were framed with black eyeliner and mascara that made her lashes look incredibly long and fluffy. She wore a pair of white gold studs in her ears and her hair was not only curled, but half of it had been pinned back and adorned with a blue rose.

Syx was tense. What if he messed up? What if she didn't like the necklace? What if-

"Sir!" Minion interrupted his thoughts. He blinked and shook his head, giving his fishy friend a sheepish smile.

"I worry too much, don't I?" Minion nodded and handed his sir his customary white jacket. Syx slid it on over a silver dress shirt and tried to shake his nerves.

It had been both so long and so short of a time since they had been simple kids with simple thoughts. But when they met outside the ballroom, they both knew they wouldn't miss it.

"Hey," they whispered to each other quietly before Roxanne took Syx's elbow for what felt like both the millionth and first time that she had done so. You could hear a pin drop in the hall as they glided down their invisible path toward Ninea, who was teary eyed and wearing a light green dress. But as fate would have it, they were not to be engaged that day.

Someone in the crowd shouted words neither of the teens could hear and only realized something was amiss when Syx stopped walking and pressed a hand to his stomach, which came away with blood.


	7. Whoa

Everything was a blur to him as he collapsed on the ground. Roxanne was screaming and pressing heavily on his bleeding wound. Tears ruined her pretty makeup and she ripped off a sleeve of her dress to help her slow the blood flow. He tried to wave her back weakly, still stupidly thinking of her pretty white dress. When he realized she wasn't going anywhere until someone forced her to, he fumbled in his jacket pocket for her necklace. No one was going to keep him from giving her this necklace today. It took several seconds for her to see what he was trying to give her, and her sobs began again with renewed strength. She kept one hand pressing on his wound with all of her weight as she reached into the hidden pocket of her dress. By that time, the guards had come back with a stretcher and heavier hands replaced hers. She took the opportunity to fasten his necklace about his thin neck and kissed him sweetly.

"Don't you dare leave me, Syx," she growled. The sixteen year old smiled weakly and replied,

"I wouldn't dream of it," just before the guards ran the stretcher out of the ball room. The guests were talking loudly amongst themselves but went silent as the princess, her dress now stained with her fiancé's blood, stood with all the elegance a proper princess should have, and fastened her own betrothal necklace. Her face was grim and tear streaked yet still somehow lovely. She strode from the room with her head held high but broke into a run as soon as the doors were shut behind her.

She burst into her room and closed and locked the door behind her, her chest heaving. She was pissed. How dare someone try to ruin her betrothal? How dare someone try to take Syx away from her? She practically ripped her dress off and struggled to free her hair from it. She scowled and roughly tied her long hair back into a ponytail. She rifled through the drawers of her vanity, as naked as the day she was born besides her undies, and cheered when she found what she was looking for: scissors. They were sharp enough that they glided through her hair in one swift motion, before she had time to think about what she was doing. She threw her ponytail, now unattached to her head, on top of her vanity and sheared through the front part of her hair which was still a bit long. What the hell, she decided. She gave herself bangs.

Next, she cleaned her face of the black streaks on either cheek and reapplied her black eyeliner. Then she ripped open her wardrobe and yanked out a skin tight black kevlar bodysuit. She had not worn one since her body began to fill out, but this was best for the warpath she was about to stomp down. After she zipped up the back (which was much easier without her long, heavy hair) she stuffed her feet into black boots and moved her necklace to sit on top of the suit. She looked at it in the mirror and nearly started crying again. It was so beautiful.

She wouldn't let the bastard who shot Syx get away with it. She scowled and threw her bedroom door open. Ninea was standing out in the hall, looking very worried. Her eyes widened.

"Roxanne?" She whispered, as if it couldn't really be her. Ninea touched the girl's shorn locks in shock.

"Yeah, who else has hair here?" She tried to joke. "Has anyone been arrested yet?" Ninea shook herself out of it.

"Yes. The man is a glaupunk who wasn't pleased about Syx ditching their snooty little bitch of a princess." Roxanne was only a bit surprised at Ninea's language. She scowled again, making a tight fist.

"When I get my hands on him I swear I will wrong his pompous short neck." Ninea chuckled and shook her head before she noticed that Roxanne was wearing her necklace. She brushed it with her fingertips and smiled.

"Nothing stops Syx, not even a metal projectile piercing his hip bone," she commented wistfully. Roxanne nodded absentmindedly.

"I put his on him as well," she told the woman who raised her. "Neither of us wanted that jackal to succeed."

Ninea and Roxanne were driven to the hospital after the queen made the princess put on the small tiara she'd gotten for her birthday. Syx was in stable condition, but it would be a couple of weeks before he could walk.

"His left hip bone was shattered by the projectile," the doctor explained. Roxanne was jealous of every one else's ability to heal ten times faster than she could. A small cut that would take ten days to heal on her would be completely gone by the end of the day for Syx. Now, she was thankful for his ability to heal quickly.

He was unconscious when the two women were led into the bulletproof glass room surrounded by guards- both blue and glaupunk. Ninea explained to Roxanne that once the king of the glaupunks had heard what had happened, he dispatched a squad of super strong soldiers to beef up their security and promised that should they decide to ship the assassin back to their planet, the royal family would all get positions on the jury (although, he privately said to Ninea, the trial would be a joke and the man would be convicted of treason, attempted murder and trying to incite a war and the penalty would be death).

Roxanne stayed by Syx's bedside, much like what he had done for her when she fell ill, until he woke up. She was very tempted to crush him into a fierce hug, but decided it would be best not to move him much and settled for squeezing his hand in the mean time.

"C-can you get me a mirror?" He asked weakly. Roxanne wasn't sure why, but asked the guards to fetch him a mirror. A few minutes later, Syx was using a hand mirror to look at the necklace Roxanne had made for him. He loved it and how different it was. Each piece stood for a different memory. The tree was a reminder of both the day they met and the summer she had sprained her wrist from falling from that very tree. The octopus, well, that was quite obvious. His purple octopus had been his favourite toy as a baby and Roxanne was the only one he let touch the squeaky thing. The lightning bolt was for his eleventh birthday. The last two, however, he couldn't quite figure out. Roxanne noticed the confusion on his face.

"The one next to the lightning bolt was supposed to be for today." She blushed deeply at her cheesiness. "The day I promised my heart to you. Then the last one... Well I'll let you wait for that one," she finished with a wink. Syx finally turned his head to get a good look at her and nearly jumped out of his bed in shock.

"Your hair!" He shouted. Roxanne blushed and tucked her bangs behind her ear.

"I was angry and my hair kinda took the brunt of it," she explained. Syx reached out and ran his fingers through her hair.

"It's still just as soft," he commented while his lips began to curl upward at the corners. "And it suits you."

"You think so?" Roxanne asked as he took the tiara out of her hair and set it on the table next to his bed. He nodded and unconsciously licked his lips. Roxanne giggled until he used his hand in her hair to bring her much closer to his face with a surprising amount of strength. They both blushed deeply, so close to each other that they could feel the heat rising on their faces until Syx bravely jumped the gap and pressed his lips to hers. It was different now, and they could both feel it. Roxanne cradled the side of his face with her right hand and kissed him with a bit more pressure and her lips just a bit parted. Before they really knew what they were doing, they were pressing open mouthed kisses over and over before it got too warm for them and they needed air. Roxanne sat back in her chair but kept her left hand in Syx's.

"Whoa," they both said in unison just before Ninea came back in.


	8. Paradise

The next several weeks were spent in a flurry of physical therapy, public speaking, and the most publicized legal battle since the death of the king. The day after Syx was released from the hospital, the prince and princess made their betrothal legally official with only a handful of witnesses. They were set to get married shortly after Roxanne's sixteenth birthday, which gave them over three years to get used to the idea. Roxanne accompanied Ninea and Syx to court, which lasted a measly two days. The man was convicted and executed within the week. After Syx was completely healed, the teens took an extended vacation in a warmer part of the world with a turquoise ocean and white sand. Ninea was tempted to go with them, but stayed at home to take care of diplomatic issues while they were away.

Roxanne got used to people staring at her by the end of their first week in paradise- even while she was in her swimsuit, which covered less skin than the one she wore to the waterpark years ago. Syx kept his eyes on hers while they played in the seawater with Minion so he would not be distracted by her, ahem, other aspects. Neither of them took off their necklaces, even while they were swimming. They kissed, here and there, but nothing like their kiss in the hospital, for which Roxanne was both glad and a tiny (she would not even admit she felt this) bit sad. She distracted herself with the beautiful scenery and dragged Syx bike riding through some of the tamer rainforests. Roxanne loved exploring and they'd often have picnics in their favourite clearing. It was their favourite because it was wide enough that you could see the sky through the middle of it and lots of friendly little animals watched them from the trees. She'd reward the brave ones that would get close by giving them a bit of her food and always thought it funny when they'd run back off into the forest. Syx just liked hearing Roxanne laugh.

Minion almost always swam with them. He loved to be able to get out of his glass dome and stretch his fins. Syx would go snorkeling to find pretty shells and rocks to bring home with them and at night, after Minion had fallen asleep, Roxanne and Syx liked to sneak out of the vacation home for a midnight dip. Both of them really enjoyed their time alone because they felt a little less shy. Syx was more shy than Roxanne because of the substantial age gap. Roxanne was the one who initiated hugs and anything pertaining to physical matters until their last night on vacation.

They'd be leaving around midday, so Syx realized it was his last chance to be a man and be closer to his fiancé than he had dared so far. The two went skinny dipping while the three moons were high in the sky. They didn't dare swim out as far as they would in the daytime because they couldn't see what was in the water with them, so once they reached the dropped between the reef and the open ocean, he stopped Roxanne with a hand on her waist and before he could convince himself to back out, he brought her close for a hug. Roxanne blushed like mad, but hugged him back with a small smile. Syx kept his thoughts clean and only kissed her after she had swam back a little bit. Finally, Roxanne got the kiss she really wanted and melted into Syx with a content sigh. She rested her hand on the back of his neck innocently, but Syx pulled away with a blush and stuttered that they should get back to the vacation home before Minion noticed, then swam off ahead of her.

Roxanne wasn't an idiot, however, and didn't take his reaction personally. In fact, she gloated to herself the whole way back.

That summer the two became healthier, stronger, and happier than they ever had been, and held hands practically everywhere they went. They did that before, but now it felt different. Syx felt like a buzz of electricity shook him every time he held the princess' hand.

Back at home, Ninea did what she always did in her spare time- plan for the future. Late at night, she would sit in her deceased husband's study and draw up designs for different things- coronation robes, wedding dresses, the house she would move to after her son became king, even maternity wear. Once she got that far she put a leash on herself.

"Ninea, don't get that far ahead of yourself," she chided her brain. But the designs still stayed in her mind, hiding in the back of her subconsciousness.

The kids stayed on vacation for a whole month and came back with darker skin. Roxanne's skin looked more akin to honey than peaches now, and Syx looked more like a ripe blueberry than the sky. Ninea was so happy to see them looking so well that she didn't have the heart to tell them until the king of the glaupunks confirmed the news. They exchanged hellos and told Ninea about their trip, then went back to life as usual.

Well, mostly usual, anyway.

Syx went back to creating things in the family lab, Roxanne read and occasionally accompanied Syx to the lab. Ninea kept worrying, but she kept that to herself. She didn't want to scare the teens without due cause.

Unfortunately, there was due cause. Less than two weeks after they got back, Ninea sat them down in the study.

"I have some rather bad news for you. The man that tried to kill Syx was part of an underground group that caused the accident your father and brother died in."


	9. Rejection

AN: So I wanted to make sure I'm quite clear on this for the sake of being clear: the age of engagement is 13 but marriage doesn't come until after both people are at least 16. :3 I didn't get as much written as I wanted to yesterday so I'm gonna write pretty much all day ^^ I think that's all I have to say for this chapter! On to teh storeh!

Roxanne felt the urge to join the warpath again. Syx looked like a popped balloon when his mother gave him the news. She grit her teeth and held her tongue but she really wanted to go jump into her kevlar suit and single handedly take down the group of glaupunk bastards. She knew that wasn't feasible, but that didn't change how angry she was. Ninea told them that the glaupunk king was trying to flush out the rats as they spoke. He wasn't pleased to hear the news either, as he had been friends with Syx's father before the "accident" that was now clearly not an accident. A radical group of men risked life and limb when they purposefully careened their automobile into the one that Syx's brother and father had been in. The whole family was supposed to be in the car that day, but Syx was an itty bitty baby and had come down with something akin to colic. Ninea had stayed home with him because he was still so small and she was a worrying mother. She waved her husband and son off and told them to go have fun. They could tell her all about the observatory when they got back.

That night, Syx slept in Roxanne's room again. Roxanne refused to let him sleep alone after seeing how upset he was. The only reason he got any sleep at all that night was because Roxanne held him close and she had always made him feel safe. When he woke up, it was because Roxanne was shaking his shoulder harshly.

"Wha-" he mumbled sleepily. Roxanne looked worried, upset even.

"You were having a nightmare," she told him plainly, using her thumb to wipe tears from his face that he hadn't even noticed were there. He tried to shake off the nightmare, but it was inescapable. He'd dreamt in black and white- a dark shadow chasing him and closing in on him. Roxanne woke him up just before the shadow was going to attack him as he cowered in a dark corner. He shuddered and hugged Roxanne tightly. He had rarely been more thankful for her presence. He rested his damp face on her shoulder and tried very hard not to cry. Roxanne was having a hard time not doing that herself. Syx was shaking like a leaf and she could feel his tears through her shirt. Her heart tore for him.

Syx had no idea what just happened. One second he was crying on Roxanne's shoulder, the next he was kissing her. She had one of her hands on his neck and the other idly resting on his back. He had a hand on her hip and one in her short, soft hair. When she bit his lower lip, his hand tightened a bit unconsciously and she gasped softly at the shiver it sent down her spine. She kissed him roughly, using her hand on his neck to bring him as close as possible. He kissed her in earnest and his hand on her hip moved to the low of her back. Roxanne wanted to push the envelope, so to speak, and pushed Syx onto his back and straddled him, her hands running up his shirt while she moved to kiss him again.

Syx grabbed Roxanne's hands and held her back for a moment.

"That's just a bit too far," he whispered in her ear. She huffed and sat back on her haunches. She folded her arms and looked away pointedly. They both knew she was being childish so Syx maneuvered away from her and curled into a ball. Roxanne sighed and laid back down to try to get a bit more sleep.

This happened several times over the next few months and it was beginning to get to Roxanne. Syx rejected her over and over and she didn't understand that it was for her own good and didn't understand that Syx had to use all his willpower to be a gentleman. Roxanne some times slept else where now. Occasionally she would sleep on a sofa downstairs or in Syx's room (he never goes in there anyway) or even back on her windowsill. Several times that she did this, she would wake up in her own bed alone, which made her feel lonely and unlovable.

Ninea had a better understanding of female emotions during puberty and as such, tried to talk to Roxanne. She would only ever get mad or silent when Ninea tried to talk to her about what was bothering her.

After Roxanne turned fourteen, Syx went back to sleeping in his room. This lowered Roxanne's self esteem even further and sometimes she would look at herself in the mirror and wonder- what was so wrong with her that made her untouchable? Syx, being male and oblivious to female emotions and responses, never bothered to explain to Roxanne why he did what he did. He didn't think he needed to. Surely she understood that she was too great a temptation for him and she was too young for the things she reached for.

It blew up in his face on his seventeenth birthday. Roxanne was no where to be found and he couldn't stop pacing and worrying and trying to help look for her. The last place he thought to look was his own room, but of course that was where she was. She'd found his old purple octopus and squeezed the hell out of it in the corner of the room. She'd cracked just a bit and he was scared.

"Roxanne?" He whispered worriedly. She stiffened but gave no other indication that she had noticed him. She stared at the octopus resolutely. It was no longer just purple but red too. It was so vivid but Syx never remembered getting anything red on it. He knelt down in front of Roxanne and lifted her chin with one of his hands. Her eyes were shut and she refused to open them.

"Roxanne? Are you mad at me?" She still said nothing. "Roxanne..." He muttered sadly. "Talk to me.. Please?" Her arms went lax and the octopus rolled onto the floor. Syx gasped.

"Roxanne?!" The red on the octopus was blood.


	10. Baka, Baka, Baka

**AN: Roxanne, you're so silly. Little known fact- teenagers use an entirely different part of their brains to register other's emotions. They commonly get fear and surprise or anger mixed up. I guess I'm included in that bunch because it hasn't completely switched over until your mid twenties. Anyway, on to teh storeh!**

AN: I went and got myself sick so updates may be a little bit slower for a little while. Part of my illness is having a horrible migraine so it's hard for me to stare at my phone for very long writing. (Yes I write on my phone ^^' Otherwise I'd rarely update because I don't have regular access to a computer) anyhoo, onto teh storeh!

Syx sprang into action. He tore a long strip of one of his curtains and wrapped it around her right forearm tightly. He did the same for her other arm, then gathered her limp form in his arms and ran into the hall shouting.

"Mother!" Ninea blanched. The only times he'd sounded so desperate were when Roxanne was hurt and he didn't know what to do. He came running down the stairs, his face ashy and panicked. Ninea didn't ask what happened. There would be time for that later. Syx followed her into the family lab and gently set the fourteen year old on an examination table. Ninea pulled out a stack of reserve skin patches that they had just in case, and she was thankful that they had them. Otherwise they would've had to close her wounds the way humans used to- which may have left a scar. She handed half the stack to Syx and they worked in silence except for the sound of tearing the seals off of the paper packages. Roxanne had two long, deep, straight cuts, one running down the length of each arm that ended at her wrists. Syx was swearing in his head. He didn't understand this at all. Why would she have done this? Could someone have done this to her? Roxanne was strong and happy. He couldn't imagine what could possibly made her feel that desperate.

Roxanne had lost quite a bit of blood. Syx made a mental note to start a reserve of her blood for her once she was healthy again. Her pink lips were drained of colour and if it weren't for the slow rise and fall of her chest, she would have looked dead. She didn't wake up for several hours. She kept her eyes shut for another hour after that. She didn't want to face the world... she didn't want to see Syx mad at her.. Not yet. They'd never had a serious fight. She never wanted to.

Syx had brought her up to her bed after they patched up her skin and wound some bandages around the patches until they properly fused to her skin. He sat at her bedside and held her hand. He didn't realize that she'd woken up.

"Roxanne..." He mumbled. "I'm so sorry. I don't know why... I don't understand... Why would you do this? You're surrounded by people who care about you... Who love you. I love you... and I just don't understand..." He choked on his tears and pressed the back of her hand to his lips.

Roxanne felt like crying. Syx made no sense to her. He'd pushed her away over and over but he said he loves her? She didn't understand.

"I make more sense then you, you big blue dummy," she mumbled.

"Yo-you're awake?" Syx's voice hiked an octave. Roxanne peeked through her eyelashes and nodded slowly.

"What were you thinking?" She shut her eyes again. He wouldn't get it. No one could. She was a freak with a tiny head. He would never be able to understand. But she could try anyway.

"Have you ever," she hissed. "Felt so out of place anywhere you go? I'm a freak, Syx. I've got a tiny head that grows hair and fucking pinkish yellowish skin. Even my eyes don't belong here. But, heh, you already knew that. But as it turns out, I generally don't care what most people think about me. The one opinion I care about... thinks I'm hideous- has reinforced it, even, way too many times for me to keep straight in my tiny brain." Roxanne's voice faded to barely above a whisper by the end of her monologue.

"Roxanne... I don't know whom is making you feel like that, but you shouldn't let them get to you..." He brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. "How many times have I told you that you're unique? That you're beautiful? That I think your skin is prettier and softer than any blue skin on this planet? Doesn't my opinion count for anything?"

"It's your opinion that's the only one I care about, you idiot!" Roxanne sat up abruptly and stared him down. "How many fucking times did you push me away? Make me feel like I was untouchable because I'm different? Make me feel like I'm going to have to live my entire life with someone who thinks I'm disgusting? Because all of those times certainly outweigh the times you ever said otherwise." Her eyes were full of tears and her face was flushed from anger. Syx... was dumbfounded.

"What?" He said stupidly. For a second, it was silent, which helped him think. It hit him. How could she have taken it that way?

"Roxanne..." He sighed, rubbing her cheek with his thumb and brushing back a few strands of her hair. "You're the one who doesn't understand." She sat there with tight lips trying to blink away her tears without shedding them. "How you could ever think that I stopped you because I didn't think you were beautiful is beyond me. You dummy... If I could spend my whole day kissing you, believe you me, I would love every second of it. It's because you're so lovely that I never let you push too far." Roxanne closed her eyes and tried to make sense of this. "I feared that you would push too far and I'd scare you away. Roxanne, you're still so young. There's a lot that you don't understand... about me. And I love that you want to get closer to me, I really, really do. But I'm a teenage boy. I barely have enough willpower to resist you normally, let alone when my hormones are in a constant fluctuation. Just... know this: I never pushed you away because I thought you were unattractive or strange. Actually, it was quite the opposite and I thought you knew that. I'm so sorry... This is all my fault.." Syx sniffled and looked away. He didn't want to cry right now and dammit, he wasn't going to.

Roxanne felt like a dumbass. Which, y'know, in this moment, she was absolutely right. A dunce cap wouldn't be enough to describe her idiocy. If you wanted to accurately display how stupid she was, right now, you'd have to stick a dunce cap on her head and hang signs all around her that say "dipshit," "dummy," or "hello, my name is stupid." And Roxanne knew it. She groaned and massaged her temples.

"God, I'm such an idiot." Syx chuckled a bit, still trying to repress his urge to cry.

"Don't scare me like that again," he muttered. She sighed.

"Don't worry," she said for the third time in her life. "I learned my lesson."

When Ninea came in to check on the teens, she found them curled together in exhausted sleep. It was likely the deepest sleep either had had since Syx had started sleeping in his own room. She smiled sadly at them and took a picture for Roxanne's memory book and set the food she'd brought for them on Roxanne's nightstand. She shut out the light as she left and knew that everything was going to be okay in their home. She knew it was a different matter entirely when you were talking about outside of their home.

Reginald (such a perfectly pompous name for a glaupunk king, Ninea thought) had found that the group went deeper than he thought. He'd imprisoned over thirty people but it seemed like they were everywhere. And even worse, it seemed his own daughter was the head of the whole damn thing.


	11. Toxic

AN: So I know that Roxanne looks like a total wimp right now. Trust me, there's a better reason than her crappy self esteem to blame. Originally, I was just going to have the two fight, but then an eevil idea sprung into my mind and of course, it's much better than my original intentions. So patience, dear readers, and buckle your seat belts because the roller coaster is about to begin~

"Shit!" She swore loudly. She knew that her plan **couldn't** fail, and yet it had! The blond princess paced, which was never a good sign to her underlings. "_Why_ didn't it work?!" It was a rhetorical question but one new associate was especially stupid.

"Maybe because she's the stronger of the two? You should work on eliminating S-" Bridgette stopped pacing and her shoulders looked rigid. Faster than he could say, "I'm sorry," he found himself hitting the wall across the room.

"Don't question me. **Ever**," she scowled. She loved being stronger than any of these men. It was a trait that defined the royal family from any other normal citizen. Although normal citizens were stronger and more resilient than humans, they did not possess the super speed, laser vision, or complete invulnerability that the royals had. Plus, she had double the strength of any of these losers. That's why she was special.

That little human bitch, on the other hand, was in every way boring. She was weak. The only thing that set her apart is that the rest of her kind were dead. Good riddance, Bridgette thought to herself. And that damned idiot blue popsicle of a prince! He'd chosen the puny human over her?! How dare he! She was much more beautiful than that mousy haired twerp when she wasn't scowling. She was the one who was promised to him at birth, not that... Grrr! Now she'd run out of creative insults for the cow? How utterly fantastic.

She had to admit that the imbecile who dared question her had a point. Syx seemed like a much easier target, and once he'd been laid out and flayed alive, the human would be so easy to crush that she wouldn't have to lift a finger. If she couldn't have Syx, she damn well wasn't going to let someone, especially someone as worthy of him as the mud in her boots, have him.

It had been easy enough to infiltrate the lame security of her enemy's home. All it took was a little money and a lot of threatening. She'd had her double agent sneak her own special concoction of neurotoxins into her food. The neurotoxins had obviously not been effective enough. They were supposed to send the little bitch into a spiraling depression as they shut down the neurotransmitters that received norepinephrine and serotonin. Figures she'd be resistant to psychological warfare. Syx, however, would be all too easy for her to snap in two.

Roxanne felt back to her usual self in no time. She could hardly even understand what came over her any more. Even her memories of... That day, the one that no one talks about, were fuzzy and inconsistent. She didn't remember how she ended up in Syx's room or where she'd found his octopus, which had been missing for several years and was presumed to have been tossed when both children were too old for it. She tried to shrug it off, but it nagged at the back of her mind for quite a while. Everything in their household was peachy for a while. Ninea started feeling paranoid after the glaupunk princess had been missing for going on three months. She replaced all of their household staff with Minions, most of whose masters had died and had no place to go.

When Roxanne's mood had swung back into normalcy, that cinched it for Ninea. Her daughter was stronger than that. Someone had been poisoning her and her instincts told her that it would not be the only attempt on the teens' lives. She immediately beefed up security, compliments of Reginald, who knew without a doubt that none of the men he sent her would ever harm her or her family. And just for some extra precautions, they all had to wear metal chokers that could incapacitate all of them at the push of a button- which would only activate for Ninea, Syx, Roxanne, or Syx's Minion. She wore it on a chain down the front of her clothing. She wanted it to be close, just in case.

Meanwhile, the demented princess kept herself busy with plans, none of which seemed to be capable of working. Yet. Her brain might not be as large as the blueberry people, but she wasn't a dunderhead by any means.

Ninea made Roxanne learn self defense and every one in the house who was capable of operating a weapon was given one. Syx actually had several, some of his own design. He took his dehydration gun and added several new capabilities and all you had to do was twist the chamber to the setting you wanted. Roxanne thought everyone was just being paranoid until the back of her mind kept nagging at her.

She woke up at night if she heard a single noise. She made sure to look everywhere in her bedroom where someone could hide before she'd let Syx come to bed. Speaking of which, she didn't understand why she'd been so touchy about, well, touching. She got it now, and damned if she didn't think herself a fool. Anyway, she found herself just as paranoid as anyone else in the castle and was actually relieved when Ninea introduced a new ritual to their dining table: scanning whatever they were about to eat to make sure there wasn't anything in it that wasn't supposed to be. It was several months before one of the scanners' green lights turned red.


	12. Unfortunately not a chapter

AN: My inspiration has dried up :'( I feel like I'm still not getting the characters quite right and it's really really bothering me to the point where I'm considering dropping my chapter fics and handing the plots to whomever wants them. Either that, or I need someone to tell me exactly what it is I'm doing wrong because I can't quite put my finger on it. I feel like Roxanne isn't witty enough and Megs is too much of a softie (I didn't even think that was possible!) but there's other things that just... bug me whenever I watch the movie and find incongruence in the characters. I don't want to drop these stories. I know how they're going to go and how they will end but the characters are just stifling my zeal. Ugh.

So yeah, lemme know what I'm doing wrong or if you'd like to be handed the plot if I do end up dropping these. I might rewrite them altogether. I'm really not sure at this point and I don't feel like I can make any more progress. The last chapter felt forced and I can't force the rest of them- it's just too demoralizing.

I'm sorry this isn't the chapter update you're looking for, but I really have hit a brick wall and the bricks are made out of character flaws and I can't get around how many things I haven't captured about them. It's hard to translate Megs' dramatics to paper.


End file.
